


Instability

by supernuklearan



Category: Code Lyoko, Code Lyoko Evolution
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 18:01:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernuklearan/pseuds/supernuklearan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabble based on a headcanon that Jeremie suffers from mood swings when working by himself. Jeremie-centric.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Instability

It starts with the vague feeling of his heavy eyelids, and that’s when the emptiness in his stomach starts to get to him.

What was only hours ago determination and drive has quickly faded into a cross between exhaustion and desperation. The nagging feeling that he has to, but he doesn’t want to and he doesn’t feel like he can. He starts sinking. He becomes trapped. Trapped in a never ending cycle of “I can’t—no wait, I can.” Because he thinks he can when he really can’t, when it’s really okay to spin his chair towards his bed and rest. None of that matters to him. If the enemy doesn’t rest then neither does the hero. He tells himself this over and over again, he lets it eat at him, lets his mind decay into an abyss of self-pity.

That becomes all he knows.

_Pathetic. Useless. Loser. Not smart enough. Can’t do it._

But it weakens, as quickly as it comes it’s gone. His heart picks up and he feels fire burning inside of him, he feels his fingers picking back up and the brightness of the screen no longer forces him to look away. He sees code running up and down the screen quicker than it had for the entire night, he even smiles at himself because he knows he can do it. He _knows_ he _can_ do it.

Only for a moment, though, when his subtle excitement is shattered upon one mistyped code. Something bugs, something glitches. Red code on the screen. Red is his least favorite color.

He sighs and his fists slam against the desk in front of him, a desk littered with empty soda cans and overdue algebra homework. Who has time to clean their room and do their homework when there are things like this on the top of your to-do list? But he, he doesn’t think he can stay on top of his list. He doesn’t think he can do it, doesn’t think he can do _anything._

He finds it hard to look at the screen, not without groaning because it’s suddenly so bright. And when the red code turns blue, he feels his heart flutter in a familiar way of hope and excitement and he finds himself focusing again. He feels his racing heart calm itself down and the growling from his abdomen isn’t as bothersome as it was a few minutes go.

It doesn’t take long, though, before he stops. Stops typing completely, and just stares into the blaring screen and wonders why— _how,_ he got stuck with this, and why it’s fair. He wonders why he’s sitting there. He wonders why it isn’t Laura, even Aelita—they’re both so much smarter than him, aren’t they? All he does is mess up.

_Never going to get it right. Why does it keep messing up? Worthless. Laura’s smarter. Einstein? Ha._

 He spends his entire night going back and forth between two very different emotions. They fight inside of him, battle against himself, the same way he battles against XANA. He wonders exactly which battle is the more painful one when he finds a tear sliding down his cheek from his own frustration, his own embarrassment. Embarrassment that he can’t do something a child could do. Maybe he could do it if he had turned in his algebra homework, or maybe he couldn’t because he can’t do anything.


End file.
